Street Roots vendor profile: The will to move forward

Donald Short Jr. has done dangerous work and has lived to tell the tale.

He served his country for 6½ years as a Force Reconnaissance Marine, going behind enemy lines to collect intelligence and report back.

“I spent some time over there in Yugoslavia, Bosnia, North Africa and Central America,” Donald said. “It’s still classified – but you can figure it out. A squad of us would go in, handle business and then get picked back up.

“Those were the fun days, when I was young.”

When Donald returned to the States, he became a lineman for “big wire.” He operated a digger truck to set power poles and rode in the lift bucket to fix power lines.

“I blew my finger off after Hurricane Katrina,” he said. “A dipshit turned off the wrong transformer at the end of the block. … I went to cut the line, and I got energized with a good one. (There was) a flash of lightning, and the whole top half of that big bolt cutter just started melting and dropping like lava.”

In between those two jobs, Donald lost something more: most of his right leg.

“I was 25 when I got this,” he said, patting his right thigh. “Everyone thinks it was messed up when I was a combat Marine and all that. But I lost my leg in Florida. Pre-med student driving drunk ran me over. Can you believe that crap? I was on leave.”

While Donald was recovering from the car accident, he met his wife.

“She gets the credit for pulling me out of my funk,” Donald said. She and a friend took away his wheelchair and crutches. “I could either hop or learn to walk (with a prosthetic leg). I hung onto the wall, watched myself in the mirror, and I figured it out.”

A buddy then got him the power line job.

“When I have a prosthetic, I can do anything anybody else can,” Donald said.

Donald was born and raised in the Portland-Vancouver area. His stepdad was head of maintenance at Bonneville Dam, and his mother became a vice president at the Bank of America in Portland.

“My dad, even though he didn’t live so long, he was real important to me,” Donald said. “And also my stepdad. … He treated my mom great. He put her through college, while supporting us and buying a house.

Donald watched his stepdad wire their new home.

“I was right there with him as a little kid. He used to piss me off whenever he told me, ‘You wouldn’t understand.’ I would (finish his work) by myself and then show him: I understand. I get it.”

At Bonneville Dam, Donald said, he “got dragged to work, fixing and building things. We were on it, him and I.”

Donald said he “never took a pill until I was 25 and got run over,” he said. “That shit hurt, you know? So pills became a part of my life after that. They also got me in a lot of trouble.”

He and his wife got into drugs and they were incarcerated in Florida. His sisters found him through the Internet and, when he got out of prison, encouraged Donald to come back to Oregon.

Donald said he has started to get clean and is going through drug rehabilitation.

But recently, someone took his prosthetic leg, and he was attacked and suffered a brain injury. Not long after, he hit a concrete slab and broke an elbow.

Donald has been recovering with the help of family, friends and the will to keep moving forward.

“I came back to Portland because of my sisters, and it’s been great,” Donald said.

He is also proud of his grown-up kids. “My children rock. They’re way better than I am. All of my kids have done well.”

Donald is determined to be independent and not impose on his family. So he stays at the Do Good veterans shelter sponsored by the Rose City Park Methodist Church. But soon he can start looking for his own place because Jeff, his veteran case worker at Transitions Projects, just got Donald a rent voucher.

Donald said he is grateful for that and more: “I’m breathing. I’m still here. Took me a long time, you know, to be grateful for that.”

Street Roots is an award-winning, nonprofit, weekly newspaper focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. Our newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Learn more about Street Roots